Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 4.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

---

[273] small plateau in the midst of which rises Craven's house. The cultivated fields belonging to this plantation extend a few hundred yards east and west to the foot of the palisades. Everywhere else the soil yields only brushwood and stunted oaks. The route in which run the Trenton, Whitesides, and Kelley's Ferry roads crosses Lookout Creek below the railway-bridge, goes up a portion of the talus, and passes below the Craven house and above the second escarpment. The railway, on the contrary, is cut through the rocks laid bare by the constant action of the water, and its grade is maintained almost on a level with the surface of the river. Hence Lookout Mountain formed a gigantic bastion surrounded with inaccessible walls, and the salient angle of which, extending into the Tennessee, was protected by an impassable ditch.

The Federals knew perfectly that three of the enemy's divisions —namely, twelve or thirteen thousand men—occupied this position. Hooker, reinforced by Osterhaus, had not quite ten thousand men¹ to attack them. Among the troops thus temporarily placed under his orders, the three armies of the Cumberland, of the Potomac, and of the Tennessee were each represented by one division: the soldiers did not know one another, the chiefs had never served together. But this diversity, instead of being a source of weakness to them, inspired every one with a spirit of noble emulation. Notwithstanding the remembrance of Chancellorsville, Hooker had remained popular with the soldiers. He knew how to animate them in the hour of danger, and sometimes had strategic conceptions of a fortunate character. He had studied the natural fortress which was towering before him, and had found out its weak points: therefore he promptly came to a conclusion in regard to his plan of attack. The bastion of Lookout Mountain has no flanking defences. The part called the Point is protected by the river against an assault, but not against the artillery of the enemy; while the knobs ranged on the left bank of the brook, which had been contended for during the nightengagement at Wauhatchie, formed natural approaches to the bastion. The Federals had availed themselves of this fact. The artillery posted on Moccasin Point swept the crest so thoroughly that the Southerners could not work in the daytime on the